Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino
“Why do you have a Luger pointed at my testicles?”
“Because you’ve just given yourself away, Captain. You’re no more German than that scotch.”
Well…what the hell was THAT all about? I’ve been thinking about this all night…wondering what to write about this film…and the best I can do is some random insights:
(1) This isn’t exactly a film with a plot…certainly not the simple Nazi-hunting-and-mutilating story advertised in trailers and commercials. The actual Nazi-hunting Basterds are only featured in approximately HALF the screen time. The rest is taken up with an extraordinary collection of sub-plots, all linked together by the odd character and the odd circumstance. It’s as if we’re watching four separate films, that enter-and-exit each other’s frames with some of the most skilled farce I have ever seen, outside of a Steven Moffatt script.
(2) So…what is this film actually ABOUT? More to the point…is it about ANYTHING? Being Tarantino, it’s about a great many things, but if there is a unifying theme, it’s the idea of the powerful impact of labels and facades. People are obsessed with their images throughout this film. Nicknames are nit-picked over, language and clothing lead characters into triumph and despair, the soundtrack and the visuals play a game of modern vs. historical counterpoint, and — in the most fascinating scene of the film — an identity-guessing card game that says more about identity than any Dan Brown-style info-dump could possibly manage. Even the fonts in the opening credit sequence are constantly changing — daring the audience to speculate about the meaning of what they are watching…or about to watch.
(3) Alternatively, this could be a movie showcase of random historical window dressing, designed to do nothing more than provide a backdrop to a giant acting workshop. Brad Pitt is once again the weak link, but only by comparison…and there’s no doubt that his hokey-hick is played pitch-perfect for what is required in the film. But the man who steals the show is Christoph Waltz as Colonel Landa, in what is the most delicious, vile, creepy & Oscar-worthy supporting role since Heath Ledger’s turn in The Dark Knight. Everyone is completely compelling on-screen, with layer-upon-layer of motivation slowly stripped away over the course of the film. Ironically, the Basterds are the only single-dimensional characters in the film…and that in itself makes them a commentary on cutting through flabby filler to get at the heart of their purpose (or the pseudo-plot). At times, they stand around, looking for all the world as if they’ve walked into the most surreal set-up in history…and you can’t get more surreal than Nazi-occupied France, through the Tarantino filter.
(4) The most infamous fact about the film is its revenge-fantasy re-writing of WWII and the killing of the Nazi High Command. But it turns out to be almost an after-thought, as Tarantion has fashioned a film that is far more linear, laid back, and contemplative than anything else he has ever committed to celluloid. The final, operatic blaze that kills everyone comes as an actual SHOCK…because instead of buidling up to it, monkey-wrenches are thrown into the works to stop it from happening at every turn. Yet chance and karma enter the picture and send it to its firery conclusion in the most surprising fashion, at the very moment the audience thinks it’s never going to happen. Everything about this film subverts expectations, even the viloence. For a Tarantino film, the usual blood-and gore is completely toned-down — either shown at a distance, in the flash of a second, or transformed into an unreal comic-book frame (I’m thinking of the scalpings in particular).
It has its flaws. The movie is still too long, some of the sountrack choices are annoying, and Martin Wuttke as Hitler is FAR too over the top. As for the scene with Mike Myers as a British (is THAT his accent?) general, with special guest star Winston Churchill sitting in the corner…what on EARTH was that supposed to be? Surreal has left the building, screaming for its sanity.
All that being said, Inglorious Basterds is certainly the most unexpected, surprising film I’ve seen in quite some time. For that alone, it has earned a solid…
8.5
